Thursday, 1/17/2013

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without rudder, waking slowly
thankful for it
brief warmth "don't get used to it"
neighbor's dog in her yard; bit of
sunshine, old comforter
Arrived Big Basin 2:30, drippy chill
under redwoods, giants seeded
before the Mayans
before Mohammed, or Lapu Lapu
and any of our ways
burned east or west.
we look up and up
then down; the tiniest of mushrooms
delicate stand on the bark's
slow cascade
"forever alive"
up north, they say, Yurok houses, "living beings"
sunk into earth warmth
Distracted by this sodden world,
getting late
but you take my photo
standing at the end of the bridge
Turned my head a little to the right
pretended to look at a fern
Boulder Creek, Bonny Doon
(decades earlier we'd
go to buy acid), Henfling's
and the old community park
Felton's, Don Quixote's
Disturbingly,
details vanish, although
the scent of woods, a vacant
lot, sign, might recall
with imagined precision the rough track
leading up to a cabin
on Ice Cream Grade
or cement walk leading to my parent's
house--Trinidad, Nick--
the lemon tree, plaster cracked
Because time is a constant
or because time does not exist
because daily I awake
and lay me down to sleep
what does it matter
to sempervirens
Random lines from my bookshelf:
"I cooked it for dinner, and spent the next couple days
with both ends open, delirious. It was a jack o' lantern
that I ate, and I'm glad I did because it humbled me."
-- Simon Kelly, "My First Mushroom Hunt,"
in All That the Rain Promises, and More, by David Arora.